VARIABILITY IN LEVANTINE TREE-RING RECORDS AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL DATING, PROVENANCING, AND PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Brita Elizabeth Lorentzen August 2015 © 2015 Brita Elizabeth Lorentzen VARIABILITY IN LEVANTINE TREE-RING RECORDS AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL DATING, PROVENANCING, AND PALEOENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT Brita Elizabeth Lorentzen, Ph.D. Cornell University 2015 The East Mediterranean littoral (the Levant) is a bioclimatically diverse region with a rich cultural heritage. Such bioclimatic diversity creates important regional variations in vegetation growth and (potentially) human-landscape interactions, and critically impacts how one interprets and uses the region’s paleoenvironmental data. This study examines how to use dendrochronology to investigate paleoenvironmental change and date and source historical/archaeological timbers in such a varied landscape, focusing on the southern Levant (southern Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, and the northern Sinai Peninsula). Chapter 1 introduces the Levant’s physical geography and climate. I review basic dendrochronological principles and applications in dating, provenancing, and climate reconstruction, and previous dendrochronological research in the Levant. In Chapter 2, I investigate variability in tree-ring growth patterns and climate responses of multiple tree species sampled along ecological gradients in the southern Levant. In Chapter 3, I compare tree-ring growth patterns and climate responses of Pinus halpensis Mill. and Pinus brutia Ten. sampled along bioclimatic gradients in both the southern and northern Levant. Finally, in Chapters 4 and 5, I use dendrochronological techniques to date and source timbers from al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and two late 19th century buildings in Jaffa, Israel. I demonstrate that the northern and southern Levant have distinct tree-ring patterns (with a transition zone located in Lebanon), and that there is clear variability in tree-ring growth along altitudinal gradients in the northern Levant. Consequently tree-ring data from the northern Levant should not be used for reconstructing climate in the southern Levant, especially at high frequency timescales, because of the critical bioclimatic differences and differing climate proxy data that can be derived from tree- rings along the Levantine latitudinal gradient. Tree-ring chronologies from multiple altitudinal zones in the northern Levant and a separate chronology for the southern Levant should be used for dating historical/archaeological timbers from these regions. One can use these distinct dendrochronological ‘zones’ to identify whether timber was procured from the northern or southern Levant. Dendrochronological data can then be combined with available archaeological/historical, textual, or other paleoenvironmental data to gain new insights on human use of forest resources from the Levant and beyond. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Brita Lorentzen received her B.A. in archaeology with a concentration in Jewish Studies from Cornell University in 2006. As part of her studies at Cornell, she took Peter Kuniholm’s dendrochronology course and began working in the Cornell Tree-Ring Lab as an undergraduate research assistant in 2004. She worked on archaeological projects in Greece and Israel, which further developed her interest in paleoenvironmental studies in the Mediterranean. While working at the Tel Dor Archaeological Excavations in Israel, she also worked with researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science, which sparked her interest in conducting dendrochronological research in Israel and the southern Levant. After receiving her undergraduate degree, she worked as a research technician in the Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory under Sturt Manning and participated in dendrochronological field projects in Northeast North America, Crete, and Cyprus. She also worked in the Cornell Quaternary Paleoecology Laboratory with Michelle Goman, who encouraged her to pursue graduate studies in Quaternary paleoecology. During her PhD studies at Cornell, Brita has worked on dendrochronological research projects in the Northeast US, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Turkey, in addition to her main research in the southern Levant. She also works as a dendrochronologist and wood identification specialist on multiple archaeological projects in the Near East, including the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project, the Akko Bay and Dor-Tantura Underwater Excations in Israel, the Cyprus Archaeomagnetic Project, and the Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeological Project in Jordan. v This work is dedicated to the memory of Leon H. Lorentzen, a wonderful archaeologist whom I was fortunate to count as a mentor and family. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several research grants were vital in financing this work, including: the Council of American Overseas Research Centers-American Center of Oriental Research Pre-Doctoral Fellowship; the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies travel grant; multiple Hirsch travel grants from the Cornell Archaeology Program; multiple Kroll Travel Awards from the Cornell Near Eastern Studies Department; the Donavan Family Scholarship and additional research funds from the Geological Sciences Department; a Cornell Graduate School Research Travel Grant; and several generous financial contributions from the Cornell Tree-Ring Lab and the Malcolm H. Wiener Foundation. I have also been supported at Cornell by numerous TA appointments in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, a Foreign Language and Area Studies scholarship, and funds from the Classics Department. This project is the result of extensive collaboration with many individuals in several different countries. It’s been a fantastic journey, and I’m sure that I could fill many more pages than I have here to express my gratitude. First, I would like to thank the members of my committee, Sturt Manning, Michelle Goman, Tim Fahey, and Peter Kuniholm, for their instruction and guidance during my graduate studies. It would take forever to list out the many ways that they have assisted me, so I’ll just be succinct and give them a heartfelt THANK YOU for everything that they’ve done. You all have made me a better scientist. Their editorial comments that have helped improve this text are especially appreciated. I would also like to thank my unofficial fifth and sixth committee members, vii Carol Griggs and Tomasz Ważny, who have graciously donated many hours of their free time to help me with this work. Tomasz, thanks for encouraging me and helping me develop my research skills in wood anatomy and dendroprovenancing. Thank you also for bringing me along with you to the field in Europe. I never thought that I’d get to experience crossing Transylvania in a Volkswagen while listening to Black Sabbath, being chased by Bulgarian water buffalo, or moonlight chain-sawing subfossil oaks in Bosnia! Carol, thanks for all your help in answering my many questions about climate and statistics, and most of all, thanks for being a fantastic office-mate. Thanks also for bringing me with you to the field to dig in Late Pleistocene mud and drill holes in people’s attics (and demolish the occasional wall)! Elisabetta Boaretto at the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science was instrumental in helping me make the contacts necessary for accessing archaeological and forest materials in Israel. She has also on multiple occasions helped me find and store equipment and provided me with food, transport, and lodging. It’s fair to say that this project wouldn’t have happened without her help. Kimmel Center researchers Lior and Johanna Regev showed great hospitality and helped with forest sampling (which included a lesson in removing stuck increment borers). Lior, I look forward to working on many new exciting tree- ring projects in Israel! Both the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and Jewish National Fund (JNF) generously gave me access to Israel’s nature reserves and planted forests. I’d particularly like to thank Didi Kaplan, Talya Oron, Natan Elbaz, and Naama Tessler from the Nature and Parks Authority and David Brand and Amikam Riklin from the viii JNF for their help in sampling and providing ecological information about the forests. Nature and Parks staff members Dotan Rotem, Yossi Karni, Eyal Miller, and Eli Sliječević, and JNF staff members Yoram Goldring, Amir Zehavi, Ezra Stein, Ido Rasis, and Haim Teperberg also provided valuable field assistance, information, and occasional transport through some of Israel’s more rugged forest trails. For my research in Jordan, I would especially like to thank Barbara Porter, Christopher Tuttle, and the rest of the staff at the American Center of Oriental Research for their hospitality and assistance. I would also like to thank Engineers Eid Al-Zouabi and Al-Shourman from the Forestry Department of the Jordanian Ministry of Agriculture for letting me sample in the Dibeen Reserve, and Dr. Abu Hazim (Director General of the Jordan Meteorological Department) for the climate data from the Shobauk and Ras Muneef stations. Hazim Nusaibeh and Abu-Khaled-M’hd Talih Youseli Bari Hamdan showed me great hospitality and gave helpful assistance with sampling at Dibeen. Jennie Bradbury, Ameen Al-Duqs (Jordanian Ministry of Agriculture), and Linah Ababneh